Ethics debate as pig brains kept alive without a body

[Amberlen]

and i missed decapitation..so i guess my view still stands, i think body, mind, soul are in some unfathomable way intertwined. so i dont think a decapitated persons brain could be sentient..to me theres a huge difference between that,and an intact person being revived. *shrug*

 

[Onyx]

and i missed decapitation..so i guess my view still stands, i think body, mind, soul are in some unfathomable way intertwined. so i dont think a decapitated persons brain could be sentient..to me theres a huge difference between that,and an intact person being revived. *shrug*

So if it becomes possible to do the microsurgery to transplant someone's head, and the person even remained awake during the procedure with a heart/lung machine, you would consider them as having passed through death and now soulless - even if you were talking to them the whole time?

 

[Brian G Turner]

We're kind of missing the point by discussion of "the soul". The question is whether such a subject may experience pain or distress. Also, another reminder that we don't discuss issues of spirituality here, thank you.

 

[Onyx]

We're kind of missing the point by discussion of "the soul". The question is whether such a subject may experience pain or distress. Also, another reminder that we don't discuss issues of spirituality here, thank you.

It's a shame the article has nothing to say about how, if at all, they determined that the pigs were not conscious. Was it speculation or a PET scan that was compared to a live pig PET? Not much to consider without knowing more about the results.

Religion aside, the question of "what is death?" seems a little appropriate because of the very real possibility that a piece of donated gray matter could contain some important part of the donor's memory or personality that a living brain could access. Would such a hybrid brain reflect the consciousness of both people?


I've always wondered whether consciousness is a program running as software rather than built into the hardware, and whether cognition can ever go to zero and be restored. Interrupt it by going to zero brain activity and the pattern is lost, like turning on a computer without the boot disk. If the program of consciousness shuts down, then there is no real way to restart it by simple stimulation, and there will be no awareness.

In the case of cold water suspension, I imagine the brain doesn't ever shut down completely and a certain critical minimum of firing is maintained.

To bring this full circle, the reason I was asking these inappropriate questions about souls is to discuss whether a soul could be another way of describing that operating system actively running in RAM. (Or "ghost" in the parlance of Ghost in the Shell.)

 

[dask]

Does a soul have mass?

 

[Onyx]

Does a soul have mass?

As either the term for an information set or a supernaturally imbued quality: No.

 

[Amberlen]

It's a shame the article has nothing to say about how, if at all, they determined that the pigs were not conscious. Was it speculation or a PET scan that was compared to a live pig PET? Not much to consider without knowing more about the results.

Religion aside, the question of "what is death?" seems a little appropriate because of the very real possibility that a piece of donated gray matter could contain some important part of the donor's memory or personality that a living brain could access. Would such a hybrid brain reflect the consciousness of both people?


I've always wondered whether consciousness is a program running as software rather than built into the hardware, and whether cognition can ever go to zero and be restored. Interrupt it by going to zero brain activity and the pattern is lost, like turning on a computer without the boot disk. If the program of consciousness shuts down, then there is no real way to restart it by simple stimulation, and there will be no awareness.

In the case of cold water suspension, I imagine the brain doesn't ever shut down completely and a certain critical minimum of firing is maintained.

To bring this full circle, the reason I was asking these inappropriate questions about souls is to discuss whether a soul could be another way of describing that operating system actively running in RAM. (Or "ghost" in the parlance of Ghost in the Shell.)

I’m out of this one my friend

 

[Vertigo]

Does a soul have mass?

I believe the answer to that is 21g. There was even an experiment done to determine the value! 21 grams experiment - Wikipedia

I believe there are also a number of pieces of music celebrating this 'fact'.

But again we are drifting a little too close to the ethical forum boundaries here.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

The brain doesn’t have pain receptors, does it? So it’s more a matter of the imagined life going on inside the brain while things are being done to it. Sort of a world of its own in there.

 

[Onyx]

The brain doesn’t have pain receptors, does it? So it’s more a matter of the imagined life going on inside the brain while things are being done to it. Sort of a world of its own in there.

Have all the nerves running into that brain been blocked? The rather gaping neck wound is likely not pain-free.

 

[Vertigo]

The brain doesn’t have pain receptors, does it? So it’s more a matter of the imagined life going on inside the brain while things are being done to it. Sort of a world of its own in there.

Not pain maybe but total sensory deprivation for 36 hours comes under the heading of torture in my book.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Do it and ask the transplantee what they are.

pH

 

[awesomesauce]

The brain doesn’t have pain receptors, does it? So it’s more a matter of the imagined life going on inside the brain while things are being done to it. Sort of a world of its own in there.

I dunno, humans report experiencing pain sensations in amputated limbs. Why would we assume pigs don't have the same mechanism? And if the brain experiences pain, does it matter whether or not the receptors are actually connected? It seems like since the brain is the thing responsible for interpreting the signals as pain, if the brain says something hurts, you hurt, regardless of whether the thing you perceive "hurts" is still connected to your brain.

 

[Onyx]

I dunno, humans report experiencing pain sensations in amputated limbs. Why would we assume pigs don't have the same mechanism? And if the brain experiences pain, does it matter whether or not the receptors are actually connected? It seems like since the brain is the thing responsible for interpreting the signals as pain, if the brain says something hurts, you hurt, regardless of whether the thing you perceive "hurts" is still connected to your brain.

You could certainly prevent pain inputs from arriving at the brain, but if the brain is still in a severed head, all that neck trauma at least is going to be firing signals to the brain.

"Ghost pain" like you mention would just be another level above that, along with a level of fear no animal or person should experience.